News from Southeast Asia directly to your inbox every weekday.
The Mekong Memo is proudly presented by:
Horton International is your premier partner for executive search in Southeast Asia. Whether you're a small startup or a global corporation, our reliable and effective recruiting solutions are tailored to meet your unique needs. With extensive experience and offices across the region, we excel at overcoming recruitment challenges and securing top talent for your organization.
Click here to learn how Horton can make your life easier.
The Memo is published weekdays - Cambodia (every Monday), Myanmar (Tuesday), Laos (Wednesday), Vietnam (Thursday) and Thailand (Friday). The Thailand edition is free in its entirety; the others usually abbreviated for non-paid subscribers.
Please go to https://www.mekongmemo.com/account to select country editions you would like to receive without affecting your overall subscription status.
Forty Days of the President's Peace
Since Min Aung Hlaing's April 10 inauguration, the military has carried out 219 attacks by air over the country, killing at least 122 people and wounding 240 more, according to DVB's tally. On May 11 and 12, warplanes hit Mindat in southern Chin State more than a dozen times, killing four people including a prisoner of war and destroying 15 homes. In Kani Township, a junta column looted every house in Thamin Chan village, taking away rice, cooking oil, and furniture on 18 commandeered carts and burning four homes to the ground before moving on toward Sone Chaung. Sagaing Region saw 62 of the 219 attacks and 34 of the dead.
Read more: The Irrawaddy (Mizoram refugees), Mizzima (15,000 displaced), BNI Online (Kanpetlet strikes), Mizzima (500 factory troops), DVB (cumulative toll)
Hormuz to the Rice Paddy
Fuel prices have tripled in Myanmar since late February, the direct knock-on from Iran's Strait of Hormuz closure to a country that imports more than 90% of its fuel and nearly all of its fertilizer. Magway region’s basic food prices are 38% higher than the national baseline, the biggest increase in the country. The Karenni Human Rights Group is saying that there’s a risk of famine for more than 200,000, as junta troops have been arresting farmers, deliberately flooding fields, and cutting off the flow of goods. The group first raised famine warnings in November 2025, and by its own account the situation has become worse since then.
Read more: Narinjara (WFP representative), ReliefWeb (kyat depreciation), CNN (farmer-level cost), Mizzima (Karenni IDP famine)
Thirteen Million Names in the Crosshairs
In his first act after appearing at the Central Body for Conscription in Naypyitaw on Thursday, Defense Minister General Tun Aung told immigration offices in every township to put together conscription lists for about 13 million eligible citizens. The regime's target is 50,000 recruits yearly in groups of 5,000, and it has already pulled in nearly 120,000 people in 24 batches since the law came into force in February 2024. Defectors and resistance groups say conscripts are being used as cannon fodder, with some shot by officers for retreating, which may explain an appetite for better paperwork.
Read more: The Irrawaddy
The Junta's Best Export Is Its Own Workers
Migrant remittances were $5.6 billion in 2025, which is the single largest source of foreign currency flowing into Myanmar. Compare that with the $670 million received in 2022. Behind that increase is a 2024 rule that forces workers abroad to send a quarter of their earnings back home by way of official banking channels; passport renewals and the right to work overseas are held as collateral in exchange for compliance. Foreign direct investment, by contrast, was $83 million last year, so the regime pulls roughly 67 times more from its own diaspora than it can get from outside investors. Inflation is about 30 percent, reserves are about $8.5 billion as of March 2024, and sanctions have choked most of the usual capital channels, so the generals need every dollar they can get for fuel, medicine, and food.
Read more: Straits Times
Proof of Life Still Needed
Speaking outside the UK Parliament yesterday, Kim Aris said there is "still no credible, independently verified proof" that his 81-year-old mother is alive. The junta's April 30 state media photo, showing Aung San Suu Kyi seated on a wooden bench with two officials, hasn't convinced him. "Moving my mother, an 81-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate, from one secret place to another is not freedom. She remains a hostage," Aris wrote on Facebook, more than five years after the coup that put her there.
Read more: The Independent
Death Sentences Compound Bosses
The junta's first bill under Min Aung Hlaing's new "civilian" government proposes the death penalty for anyone who tortures or unlawfully detains victims in order to force them into scam work. Life in prison is now on the table for the crime of running a compound or crypto fraud schemes. Parliament will come together in early June. The legislation also relaunches the central anti-scam committee, whose predecessor collapsed after its chair, then-Home Affairs Minister Tun Tun Naung, was fired because of kickbacks from the operations he was supposed to be shutting down. In China, eleven members of the Ming family were hanged on January 29 after a Wenzhou court convicted them last September.
Read more: CNA ($20B US losses), The Irrawaddy (bank/telecom integration), Cryptopolitan (Ming family sentences)
Stitch and Ditch
Kings Rich Fashion, an H&M supplier operating for a decade in Shwepyithar Township, is going to shut down at the end of June, putting more than 1,000 workers out work. Management blames dried-up orders; workers say it’s because foreign brands have been quietly abandoning Myanmar since the 2021 coup. Nearby at Nay Shwe Win factory, management gave pink slips to 19 union organizers on May 9, then sacked 103 more when their colleagues complained the next day, a sequence the Solidarity Trade Union of Myanmar says is textbook union-busting. The factory supplies ONLY, Terranova, Pimkie, and LC Waikiki. The minimum daily wage for garment workers is currently 7,800 kyats; for context, two kilograms (4 and a half pounds) of rice now costs 5,000.
Read more: The Irrawaddy (sector headcount), DVB (ILO Convention 87)
Sagaing Fault Clears Its Throat Again
A 5.2 earthquake struck 35 kilometers southeast of Yangon at 8:35am local time on Monday, shallow enough at a depth of 10 kilometers to set some Bangkok high-rises swaying. A second, smaller tremor came thirteen minutes later. Buildings were evacuated in Yangon and neighboring towns as a precaution. Shaking rolled as far as Chiang Mai and Lampang (both in Thailand) with no reported casualties or notable damage. The USGS figures that up to 42,000 people in the zone of strong shaking and another 238,000 in moderate shaking. The epicenter was about 23 kilometers from the Sagaing Fault, the same system that caused March 2025's 7.7 disaster.
Read more: The Nation (China quake casualties), ReliefWeb (USGS PAGER estimates)
That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back- hit reply and tell us what you think.
If you value the Mekong Memo, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.